The top Massachusetts court agreed to let Michael Walsh remain on the ballot as a candidate for state attorney general, despite a judge acknowledging substantial evidence that the lawyer behind Winthrop’s anti-housing campaign engaged in fraud.

The judge, Jeffrey Karp of the Essex County Superior Court, ruled Friday that state law doesn’t allow the removal of Mr Walsh’s name from the November election ballot even though the state’s investigative record demonstrates “substantial evidence” of fraud in the Walsh campaign’s collection of nomination signatures.

Then Monday, a member of the state’s Supreme Judicial Court, Justice Frank Gaziano, upheld Judge Karp’s finding.

Substantial evidence

The rulings largely hinge on the fact that, despite the evidence of widespread signature duplication in the Walsh case, the state’s certification rules allow elections officials in each town only to check whether the names on nomination papers submitted by a candidate match the names of actual registered voters in their town.

Any examination of further questions about the legitimacy of any particular signatures on a nomination list, for the purpose of ballot access, require a challenger to first satisfy tight procedural and timing rules, which the objector in the case of Mr Walsh – the state Democratic party – failed to meet.

“Despite substantial evidence in the record of signature fraud, the court is constrained to rule” on behalf of Mr Walsh, Judge Karp said. Justice Gaziano, in affirming the decision, said he had to act quickly to meet the state’s deadline to have candidate lists for the November ballot ready by Tuesday.

Mr Walsh, a Republican, has described himself throughout the case as a victim of Democratic party efforts to prevent him from challenging the state’s incumbent attorney general, Andrea Joy Campbell – without addressing the State Ballot Law Commission’s suggestions of fraud in the case.

Discretion rejected

The commission is the state entity that holds the right to address such fraud if the allegation is properly raised by a party claiming harm. Over several days of review, the commission heard evidence of the fraud and agreed that it appeared sufficient to remove Mr Walsh from the November ballot. The five-member panel – including Joe Boncore of Winthrop – dismissed as relatively immaterial the fact that the Democratic party failed a procedural step by mistakenly delivering its challenge of Mr Walsh by regular mail instead of by certified mail. Judge Karp, however, said that state law did not allow the commission that kind of discretion.

In a response on social media to the ruling by Judge Karp and its affirmation by Justice Gaziano, Mr Walsh called it a victory for the right of people to decide elections. He also recited the poem Invictus by William Ernest Henley, a traditional celebration of humans persevering in which the author asserts that “it matters not” how one is “charged with punishments.”

Mr Walsh resides in Lynnfield but has become a prominent political figure in Winthrop by convincing the Town Council to join his lawsuit arguing that the state’s 3A housing law represents an unwarranted interference in Winthrop’s affairs. Some council members have begun backing away from that position as the resulting losses of state aid mount.

The state senator representing Winthrop, Lydia Edwards, said the court rulings, while a victory for Mr Walsh on the matter of ballot access, paint a negative picture of him overall. “We can see, and the court agreed, that he is a liar and a criminal,” Senator Edwards said of the findings. “But because he didn’t get perfect service,” she said, referring to the certified mail issue, “his name will be on the ballot.”

Future challenges

State Democrats offered a similar reaction to Mr Walsh remaining on the ballot to be attorney general, saying his case represents an unprecedented level of election fraud in the state. “This is a perverse and bizarre result, and is an affront to the thousands of people whose names and addresses were used without their knowledge or consent,” Steve Kerrigan, the chair of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, said in a written statement.

Mr Walsh needed 10,000 signatures of Massachusetts residents to appear on the ballot against Ms Campbell. His campaign presented 10,677 signatures and the State Ballot Law Commission rejected 1,021 of them, leaving him with 9,656 signatures.

A fellow Republican, Anne Manning Martin, also was disqualified by the commission from appearing on the ballot as a candidate for lieutenant governor. They both used the same private consultant, Joseph Bronske, to collect nomination signatures for them. Ms Manning Martin was still pursuing an appeal of her ballot disqualification. Another Republican candidate for lieutenant governor, Anne Brensley, also hired Mr Bronske to collect nomination signatures and she withdrew from the race rather than submit the signatures he collected for her.

While Mr Walsh will appear on the ballot, he still faces other challenges, including possible legal action by state prosecutors and by individual voters over the possibility of fraud in his collection and presentation of his nomination signatures. The incident, Senator Edwards and state Democrats said, also might prompt reviews of the sufficiency of the state’s current rules for validating nomination signatures.